Monday, December 7, 2009

I urge you to vote for Alan Khazei in the Massachusetts Democratic Senate Primary on Tuesday, December 8.

I could give you some good reasons, and will come back to that below, but I know that’s not what you want. This is politics and you want some cold, hard, cynical reasons to vote for Alan Khazei.

(1) Stick it to the snobs on Beacon Hill and Capitol Hill. They think, whatever other great experience in public life a candidate like Alan Khazei may have, you have to be a career politician or multimillionaire to run for public office.

(2) Stick it to the PACs and lobbyists. The gall of Alan Khazei thinking he could run as a reformer on contributions directly from individual citizens and not take their PAC or lobbyist money. The gall of not making the usual promises to the special interests to get that money. The gall of you even thinking for a moment of voting for such a candidate.

(3) Stick it to the candidates who’ve cluttered your TV and all your favorite web sites with their incessant ads (that PAC and lobbyist money goes a long way). At least Alan’s ads are entertaining - you’ve got see the talking babies in Change Washington if you haven’t already (it would be a gimmick if it weren’t so true).

(4) Stick it to baby boomer politics. That’s right: Martha Coakley, Mike Capuano, Steve Pagliuca, and even Republican Scott Brown were born in the 1950s and came of age in the 1960s or early 1970s. Alan Khazei was born in the 1960s and came of age in the 1980s. And if you are a baby boomer and reading this, it’s not that we don’t like you, it’s the divisive baby boomer politics we don’t like.

(6) Vote to let Martha Coakley finish her first term in the job she took on as Massachusetts Attorney General. You notice how whenever a state Attorney General goes on crusade, like New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer against Wall Street in the early 2000s, they always get promoted to higher office, and put out of the way?

(7) Vote to keep Mike Capuano in his job as Congressman so he can get the MBTA Green Line Extension into his beloved Somerville. Do you think Capuano’s replacement will be from Somerville? His district includes most of Boston, so it’s most likely his replacement will be from Boston and not give a fig about the Green Line Extension. No advocate in the House of Representatives means no money gets appropriated.

(8) Vote to keep Steve Pagliuca creating jobs in the private sector. Come to think of it, where can I buy stock in Pagliuca Industries?

(9) Vote for the two and half year free trial for Alan Khazei. If he’s elected in January 2010, he’ll have to run again in fall 2012 for a full six year Senate term and, if it works out that you don’t like him after all, the other candidates will still be around.

(10) If you are a Democrat or Democratic leaning independent, vote for the luxury that you can vote for whoever you like the most in the Democratic race. It’s not like Republicans Scott Brown or Jack E. Robinson have a chance against any of the four Democratic candidates. If you are a Republican leaning independent or an independent independent, here’s your chance to send the Democratic political establishment a wake up call.

If you find any of these reasons compelling or even just funny, please feel free to forward this article to anyone you know who lives in Massachusetts.

For non-cynics, here are five reasons why you should vote for Alan Khazei:

(A) He’s a great leader who cofounded City Year, the youth service program now in 20 cities around the U.S.

(B) He’s made his career around building consensus and making things happen, and has always shared the credit and given others the spotlight.

(D) He believes in helping innovators and entrepreneurs find solutions.

General Wesley Clark – “we need more patriots and public servants like Alan Khazei representing the people’s interests in Washington”

P.S. Final note to all BHO gamers: you can stop hiding from the pollsters as the regulars in the other camps will have completed their media buys by Monday night. The watchword from BC at ONC: 2 ifg by C

Posted by
Left Bank of the Charles

1 comment:

Good post. Kind of amusing, in light of the "stick it to the snobs" line of reasons, that you so blithely assume that a Republican will have "no chance" against any of the Ds. Is the natural and best extension of your 'shake up the establishment' line of reasoning not 'vote Republican'? There could be no more seismic shake dealt to the ruling crew you correctly deride than for MA to elect an independent thinking R like Scott Brown to the US Senate...http://criticalmassachusetts.blogspot.com/2009/12/dont-forget-to-vote-tomorrow.html